With the tremendous growth in popularity of wood-burning stoves, the consumption and demand for wood as fuel has increased dramatically. The increase in demand has increased the competition among purchasers of wood supplies, and, in doing so, has forced the price of wood up. To reduce costs, many consumers have turned to their own resources for the harvesting and acquisition of wood, and as a result, a market is developing for economical, practical, and easily transportable wood harvesting equipment.
Generally, the use of wood as fuel necessitates cutting and splitting logs to dimensions which can be accommodated by a stove. Usually, a tree is cut into convenient lengths at the location where it is felled, and it is then loaded and transported to another location where it is unloaded, split, and used or reloaded for distribution. The process of loading and unloading heavy unsplit logs to carry out the wood splitting step significantly adds to the burden and expense of the wood gathering operation. If the wood could be split at the location where the tree is felled, a great deal of this effort and expense would be eliminated.
The easiest method of splitting wood involves the use of powered splitters. Typically, they are constructed with a splitting wedge and a power ramming device mounted on a beam along with a log support. Because of the tremendous forces involved and because of the ram length necessary to accommodate lengthwise splitting of logs, most power log splitters are fairly long and heavy. In most cases, the length and weight dictate operation of the splitter in a horizontal position. While this facilitates transportation to the location where wood is to be cut, it has the disadvantage of requiring that log sections to be split be totally picked up and placed horizontally in the splitter. Ideally, a splitter would be mobile and yet be operable in a vertical position so that the entire log section does not have to be lifted; it need only be rotated on one end onto an end support of the splitter. To this goal, various designs have been proposed that provide for raising the log splitter into the vertical position either manually or by some sort of power assist. Unfortunately, this convenience has come at the expense of added bulk, complexity, and cost.
A need exists for an economical and efficient log splitter which is easily maneuvered between a vertical operating position and an angular offset position for transporting it.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a heavy duty, uncomplicated, and inexpensive log splitter which is easily transportable in a storage mode but can be quickly and simply transformed into a operating mode for splitting.